---
name: writing-clearly-and-concisely
description: Apply Strunk's timeless writing rules to ANY prose humans will read—documentation, commit messages, error messages, explanations, reports, or UI text. Makes your writing clearer, stronger, and more professional.
---

# Writing Clearly and Concisely

## Overview

William Strunk Jr.'s *The Elements of Style* (1918) teaches you to write clearly and cut ruthlessly.

**WARNING:** `elements-of-style.md` consumes ~12,000 tokens. Read it only when writing or editing prose.

## When to Use This Skill

Use this skill whenever you write prose for humans:

- Documentation, README files, technical explanations
- Commit messages, pull request descriptions
- Error messages, UI copy, help text, comments
- Reports, summaries, or any explanation
- Editing to improve clarity

**If you're writing sentences for a human to read, use this skill.**

## Structure Principles

### BLUF (Bottom Line Up Front)

U.S. military communication standard: put your conclusion first, then explain.

**The rule:** Your first sentence answers what you need and by when. The reader can act without reading further.

**Structure:**
1. BLUF statement (1-2 sentences): the decision, action, or key point
2. Supporting context: only what's needed to understand or act

**Test:** Can someone act on your message after reading only the first sentence?

**Before:** "I've been working on the marketing materials for the conference. The design team worked hard on the layout. Could you take a look when you get a chance?"

**After:** "I need you to approve the attached flyer by noon Friday. It's for the August conference."

**Skip BLUF when:**
- Delivering bad news (empathy first)
- Skeptical audience (persuade before concluding)
- Technical topics requiring foundation (explain concepts first—see below)

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BLUF_(communication)

### Explain Concepts Before Using Them
Information must be disclosed in the correct order. Never reference a term, concept, or acronym before you've defined it. If you use it, the reader must already understand it.

## Limited Context Strategy

When context is tight:
1. Write your draft using judgment
2. Delegate a worker via `teams` with your draft and `elements-of-style.md`
3. Have the worker copyedit and return the revision

If you REALLY REALLY need to preserve context, you can skip the full `elements-of-style.md` and instead use Orwell's rules:

- Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
- Never use a long word where a short one will do.
- If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
- Never use the passive where you can use the active.
- Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
- Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

## All Rules

### Elementary Rules of Usage (Grammar/Punctuation)
1. Form possessive singular by adding 's
2. Use comma after each term in series except last
3. Enclose parenthetic expressions between commas
4. Comma before conjunction introducing co-ordinate clause
5. Don't join independent clauses by comma
6. Don't break sentences in two
7. Participial phrase at beginning refers to grammatical subject

### Elementary Principles of Composition
8. One paragraph per topic
9. Begin paragraph with topic sentence
10. **Use active voice**
11. **Put statements in positive form**
12. **Use definite, specific, concrete language**
13. **Omit needless words**
14. Avoid succession of loose sentences
15. Express co-ordinate ideas in similar form
16. **Keep related words together**
17. Keep to one tense in summaries
18. **Place emphatic words at end of sentence**

### Section V: Words and Expressions Commonly Misused
Alphabetical reference for usage questions

## Bottom Line

Writing for humans? Read `elements-of-style.md` and apply the rules. Low on tokens? Delegate a worker via `teams` to copyedit with the guide.